About this episode

The episode features the first part of a gameplay session of The Quiet Year, a collaborative map-building game focused on community rebuilding.

This here formerly-exclusive episode is the first of two sessions we played of The Quiet Year, a collaborative map building game that we absolutely fell in love with! From the book itself... "This is a map-drawing game. Together, you play as a community rebuilding after the collapse of civilization. Your decisions will define the values and future of this community, and these decisions will get added to a map which is constantly evolving. This map blends literal cartography with symbols, creating a rich visual record of land and people. Players collaborate to steer the fate of the community, while also introducing problems and tensions along the way." Listen to the rest of the story and support the show on Patreon . Enter the scenario contest (under 1500 words, theme of "Pretending to be People") by emailing PretendingPod@gmail.com with the subject line "Scenario Contest 2026." Enter the fanart contest / drawing by commenting on the pinned thread on the subreddit . Buy some merch at the Contention General Store . Follow along on Bluesky . Find other listeners on Discord and Reddit . Join the chat on Twitch . Soundtrack by WAAAVV. Wolf the Dog played "My Life is Great and It's All…

People in this episode

Host: Pretending to be People

Topics covered

• collaborative games
• community building
• map drawing
• improvisation
• storytelling

Keywords

• The Quiet Year
• collaborative game
• map drawing
• community
• improv

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Patreon, Contention General Store, Discord, Reddit, Twitch

Books & works: The Quiet Year

Places: Bluesky

More episodes of Pretending to be People

• S2E97 - Q&A: Part Two // All You Want Is More · April 25, 2026 · 57 min
• S2E96 - Q&A: Part One // Mister Ssippi · April 19, 2026 · 1h 13m
• S2E95 - It's Showtime, Kiddo (Final Finale) · March 31, 2026 · 1h 59m
• S2E94 - The News Brothers (Finale: Part One) · March 13, 2026 · 1h 25m
• S2E93 - I Know What I Have To Do · February 27, 2026 · 1h 4m
• S2E92 - God Has Left This World, But the Devil Hasn't (with Scott Dorward) · February 14, 2026 · 1h 13m

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Pretending to be People podcast page.